Good to know.

In addition to my other projects, I did manage to do just a bit of sewing in orange this weekend. Just a sneak peek for now.

orange sneak peek

Sewing is so much fun! I’ve been quilting for just under three years and it’s taken me that long to become good at sewing straight lines. Can you believe it? Of course, no one’s perfect and my lines aren’t always that straight but sometimes they are. And that bit of improvement is what makes sewing fun.

I spent all of Sunday sewing in my studio. I was probably in there for ten hours throughout the day and I was really productive. I think the key was to have the tv and radio off which I’d never tried before. I was totally and completely focused on my project and hours would go by without my knowing!

As much as I love watching movies while sewing, I think I need to work in quiet more often. I thought it would be boring but I was too engrossed in the project to be bored. I thought I’d get distracted after a while but it turns out the tv is the reason my thoughts are often scattered while crafting, why my concentration is so easily broken. Good to know. I’m still going to watch movies but on the days I’m feeling uncreative and distracted, I’ll try it with the tv off and see what happens.

What do you guys do to get into a creative groove? How do you keep from getting distracted?

Comments

  1. Your straight lines are amazingly straight!!! Love the gleam of your quilt!

    I need tea, dark chocolate and music to find the right sewing groove. So I love to listen to the radio or my iPod. Some days I feel like classical music and on other days I feel like rock.

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  2. Thanks! I really had fun quilting this on my machine. I was always so scared to do this sort of echo quilting but it wasn't hard at all!

    Hey, you're working on a dear jane quilt! I was working on one for a while but I think I'm allergic to tiny pieces and measuring and paper piecing. It just wasn't fun after about block 20. How many do you have now?

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  3. Oooh - look at those stitches in addition to your lovely straight lines!

    I'm going to be working on straight lines myself - now that I'm done free motion quilting my flowers - the only thing for it is to quilt some straight lines to balance it. *sob*

    You should come over to my blog to enter the giveaway! You know you wanna!

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  4. That fabric is beaaauuuuutiful. And every time I see one of your quilt projects, it totally inspires me to learn quilting. One of my friends just offered to teach me and I'm really excited.

    When I'm sewing or being crafty, I like to have music on, or listen to grammar podcasts that I've downloaded (I know, I'm a dork) because tv is too distracting for me.

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  5. Allison, I can't wait until you learn how to quilt! I know you'll be great at it!

    Grammar podcasts? What the heck is that?

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  6. They're short segments, about 3 minutes long by Grammar Girl (she has free podcasts on itunes) and each one is a quick grammar lesson. Like the difference between its and it's. I download a bunch of them, and then play them all in a row while I'm sewing because I feel like it helps to keep my brain cells from dropping off. Heh!

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  7. Oooooh, I love the square spiral quilting here - v. nice. (Those are some super-straight lines.) I can hand-quilt a straight line with no problem at all, but the sewing machine makes me cantankerous.

    Funny, I need the background noise to really relax into my crafting. It distracts the part of my brain that is easily frustrated by the little mistakes I make constantly. It sets me free! I guess.

    - I just realized you have a tag for 'mistakes' :)

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  8. Sometimes I need music to get me motivated for 'doing' tasks like cutting, pinning, the more mechanical processes really. But if it's a complex technique or something that requires a lot of concentration then everything goes off - total peace and quiet just to think clearly uncluttered by anything else.

    The orange fabric is totally gorgeous, by the way:-) Once I get back into sewing, I'll have to stock up on some of the lovely fabrics you are using. But then I'd have to stop buying yarn to knit:-))

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